


A Stroll Through The Woods

by axolotl119



Series: Short Stories and Such [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: thoughts of death and dying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 13:41:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29950806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/axolotl119/pseuds/axolotl119
Summary: The weather's supposed to be nice today.
Series: Short Stories and Such [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2202777
Kudos: 1





	A Stroll Through The Woods

**Author's Note:**

> an original work? me? after not updating in a holidaze? yeah haha. I'm thinking of fixing up and posting my ifp stuff too but like eh we'll see.
> 
> if u read this work: wow thanks ur the best luv u tell me what u think in the comments

“The weather’s supposed to be nice tomorrow.” One of Benji’s professors had said yesterday. He’d ignored it at the time; his brain was stuck in a seemingly endless loop of depression and negativity, and didn’t have space for “nice weather tomorrow.”

However, as he stared out the living room window (which led to the very scenic view of an alleyway), he wondered if it might improve his mood. The sun had already proven a remedy to most of his depressive funks, and he was tired of sitting down, moping, and doing homework.

Benji was going to take a walk.

After he made food, of course.

Two enchiladas and a cup of root beer later, he was leaving the dorm, nervous to be outside for the first time in over a year without his hoodie on. His hoodie hid the unwelcome swell of his chest, which would’ve been optimal for the impromptu hike he was sure to end up taking. There was a river trail near and who was Benji but an adventurer willing to brave every trail to see a creek?

He resolved to take the walk slow, and use the elevators instead of the stairs. His ankle pain had resurfaced recently and his chest binder was making itself known in a soft push against his sternum when he attempted to breathe deeply, and he wanted this walk to last.

He walked the route his friend has shown him the first time they’d needed to walk through the woods to get to some pizza place on the other side. Now, though, he took a different path, one that sloped off the main route through the forest. He knew the trail was around this area, but was content to wander until it showed itself.

Benji smiled as he remembered the last time he’d done this. His friend, Layla, and him had decided to attempt to find a lake frozen by the winds of winter’s second snow, and while they’d found one, it had come at the cost of two slips (Layla) and a snowball to the head (Benji, laughing at Layla).

There was no snow, now, just dead leaves and bare trees. He walked with his earbuds in, volume so low it faded into the background. People passed, though he really only noticed if a friendly dog came up to him and sat down, silently asking for pets, with their fast-walking owners soon coming to clip a leash onto their collar and murmur unnecessary apologies. Soon, he had found the frozen lake, though it was no longer frozen and had become a habitat for two ducks that bobbed up and down in the afternoon sun, searching for dinner. He took pictures and sent them to Layla, along with some funny captions about walking slightly faster because of the lack of snow. He looked at the time on his phone and knew it was time to head back. After all, he’d only portioned out an hour of his day for this walk, and if he stayed out too long, the night would catch him.

Ten minutes passed before he finally made his way back to the trail and continued onward, determined to find the end of it. He enjoyed the view around him, taking in the wide tree trunks, too large for him to wrap his arms around; the branches arching over his head, as though sheltering him from the sky; and the leaves crunching beneath his feet, though the pieces were too small for him to see, even with his glasses on. 

He passed buildings that hovered on the slopes parallel to the course of the stream. Trees decayed next to the trail, and he watched water pass through a hollowed out tree trunk. It struck him, the magnitude of the river and the forest. It had probably existed for centuries, and would continue to exist, long past his own, inevitable death.

Death.

It was a topic he’d considered often.

Sometimes his own; sometimes his loved ones’. He’d never been particularly scared of it. When he was younger, he used to dream of dying, details far more graphic than any six-year-old’s mind had any right to imagine. He was hunted and eaten by a being in the shape of an alligator; drowned in a vat of hot tar; stabbed and left to bleed out on the pavement in a nondescript alleyway. They had scared him, at first, but at some point he’d learn to tolerate it. Some might even say he had become comfortable with it. 

The forest was thriving.

The forest was dying.

Both, at the same time.

A living contradiction.

He thought of stories of beings that lived in trees; nymphs and spirits and such. He thought of La Lechuza, and the stories his brothers used to tell him to scare him. He thought of La Llorona, and remembered how his brothers would swear up and down that the river they lived near back home was the very same river from the story.

This was a different river, and besides, his younger brother had once declared that his school friend had said La Llorona didn’t have papers and wasn’t likely to try sneaking through the river just to reach all the other kids. Her kids were in Mexico, not America.

A woman passed by him. “Nice shirt!”

He started, unused to the sound of human voices in the haven of solitude he’d created. He stammered out a thanks with a voice husky with unspoken words.

Benji reached the end of the trail, and stood there for a couple of minutes, contemplating his next steps. It was already an hour to sunset, and he didn’t want to be in the dark forest at nighttime.

He turned around, and came back the way he came.

A couple of steps into this endeavor, a phone call paused his music. He looked at the screen, and stopped, staring at the  _ Mama _ on the screen. He didn’t have to answer her. He knew that it would only make him feel worse, and might even worsen his current depressive mood.

Benji picked up the phone.

“Hola, mija!” The voice on the other end of the line greeted. “How are you, mi nina?”

He winced slightly. She’d received the memo that he wasn’t her daughter, but refused to acknowledge it, as though ignorance might make it go away.

“Hi mama.” He answered as his walk slowed. 

“How are you?”

A pause. What to tell her? That his therapist wanted to prescribe him medicines, because the sleep scheduling and thought challenging wasn’t enough? No. She didn’t believe in mental health, and would make nasty comments about him wanting to fake his mood. That she’d traumatized him to the point where the mere reminder of the event had sent him into a funk that had already lasted five days? No, she would tell him that he was remembering wrong. She’d given him everything, she would say, he was always a happy child. That someone in the dining hall had called him sir a couple weeks ago and he’d carried that bubbly feeling for the rest fo the day? No. She would tell him he wasn’t a boy and should stop acting like one.

“I haven’t been feeling well, mentally, mama.” He settled on. She at least believed him that sometimes he felt sad.

“Ay, it’s because you miss us.” 

“Not really, mama. Well, maybe the comida.”

“You could at least pretend you care about us.”

A sharp intake of breath. “I do. I love all of you, very much.”

“Then you miss being around people.”

“No, my roommates and I talk often.”

A pause. “Then why are you sad?”

“I don’t know.” A lie.

How was he supposed to tell her that she’d hurt him so badly that he’d cried and cried and slept and slept to forget? That he knew she loved the daughter in her head, not the son she had? That he wished she loved  _ him _ ? That this one childhood ending trauma that happened when he was 8 years old still affected him over a decade later?

He chose not to.

The call went quiet.

“I’ll call you later I’m busy.” His mom said, as though she hadn’t been the one to call him.

He forced a smile. “Okay.”

“Adios.” The line went dead.

The feeling of reverence had swiftly been replaced by the same gray nothingness that cloaked and protected him from the harsher negative emotions, and he walked quickly back to his dorm, ignoring the sights which had previously captivated him.


End file.
